Support for women

On July 2, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed HB 1307, which would have tripled the mandatory waiting period for women seeking abortions.

Missouri has only one health center that provides safe, legal abortions. Women travel nearly 100 miles on average for the procedure, and one in 10 women travels more than 300 miles.

This bill produces many barriers to abortion by forcing women to arrange for travel, lodging and child care for three days while they travel to Missouri’s only remaining abortion clinic in St. Louis.

The bottom line is these barriers to a safe and legal procedure hurt Missouri women and families.

As a medical student and a future physician, I understand that the decision to have an abortion should be made between a woman and her doctor.

I hope that state lawmakers will make the best choice for Missouri women, which is to stay out of our personal health-care decisions and let the veto stand.

Gov. Nixon has made the right decision by standing with women. We need the General Assembly to do the same. We have voiced our opposition, and it’s not too late for Missouri legislators to listen and stand up for the rights of Missouri women and families.

Emily Freeman

Mission

Open-carry action

I read an interesting idea: If you are getting a hamburger or buying baby furniture or shopping for toothpaste, and an armed person walks in, you should leave immediately.

Don’t stop to pay for your meal, leave what you intended to purchase — just leave, for your own safety and that of your family.

You don’t know whether that person is promoting open carry or is there to shoot up the place. The idea makes sense to me.

Judy Hellman

Overland Park

Guns, Ozarks image

If “people down here are hardworking, self-sustaining, good, moral people,” why is there a need to wear a firearm (7-6, A1, “Image problem”)?

If there exists a negative stereotype of “people down here” being backward, racist gun lovers, then they are part of its perpetuation.

I am afraid you do not have to go as far as New York to find good patriots who believe that stereotype.

John Gilluly

Independence

Obama rates low

I have great respect for the office of the U.S. president, but the current occupant does not deserve the respect normally accorded the president. When he ran for election, he stated that he was going to fundamentally change the U.S.

Considering he is spending us into bankruptcy, destroying our economy, downsizing our military, alienating all our allies around the world and empowering all our enemies, he is well on the way to completing his stated goal.

We will recover from this abomination, but it will take a long time and a lot of awakening of a large percentage of voters.

If our representatives in Congress don’t act pretty soon, we may not recognize the American dream, which we’ve always cherished.

God help us.

Wake up, America. You voted for the clown twice.

Carroll L. Story

Lee’s Summit

Obama Claus gifts

Perhaps saying that President Barack Obama has a failed foreign policy would be better stated by saying he never had a foreign policy.

Either way, we now find ourselves in a mess because of incompetent leadership.

It could be said that the price we all are paying is attributed to an uninformed electorate having been seduced into voting for a pep rally leader promising lots of free goodies.

The allure of Obama Claus sitting in the Oval Office with a bag full of free cellphones and passing out welfare checks to people who didn’t have to do anything to receive them was too good to be true. Add to that sending people into the streets to urge people to apply for their food stamps was a dream come true.

It was a dream come true for the Democrats expanding their voter base, as well.

To keep the ball rolling, all that was needed was to use a few thugs in the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service to intimidate and silence any conservative opposition.

Muted voters’ voice

Over the last decade, I would say the political environment in Mission is lukewarm at best. By lukewarm, I mean that people may just be of the opinion that “whatever will happen will happen, so why should I care enough to have input? It’s always been this way.”

I have seen statistics that in a 2012 election, voter turnout was barely 20 percent. I point out why this may be the case. In the upcoming elections, there will be the usual sign placements and door-to-door campaigning.

Public forums will follow with predetermined questions selected by the local chamber of commerce, which represents not just Mission but the whole of northeast Johnson County.

There is an online blog publication based in neighboring Prairie Village. It’s sad that neither of these allows for actual Mission residents to be heard.

Sam Hilleary

Mission

Eisenhower basics

Other than objections to the architect’s design of the proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., has anyone given consideration to what President Dwight Eisenhower would want?

Imagine for a moment President Eisenhower were alive and living near his museum in Abilene, Kan.

Some enterprising soul walks up to his door and proposes to build a $49 million memorial to him. Ike, though practiced in diplomacy with Winston Churchill and many others over the years, is acutely aware of this country’s massive debt situation.

How long do you think it would take him to send this person away? Is it possible the Eisenhower family looks at this the same way?

With the massive debt and the failure to raise the necessary private funding for this project, wouldn’t a nice plaque in the Pentagon do for the time being?

Of course, I’m joking, because I truly believe honoring one of our greatest leaders is a great idea.

However, public funding for memorials when you are cash rich is one thing.

When you are in hock up to your eyeballs, it’s time to focus on the basics.

Larry McCarthy

Overland Park

Kansas arithmetic

Perhaps the Kansas secretary of labor needs to go back to elementary school (7-11, Letters). When you pick and choose which jobs are “real” jobs you can make the numbers say anything you want them to.

A job is a job, period. Perhaps with all the cuts in education the Kansas Legislature has done over the past few years has affected her ability to do arithmetic.

Steve Herndon

Kansas City, Kan.

Bashing the Kochs

The editorial board and the many letter writers to The Star continue to slam those evil Koch brothers. But they are missing the point on money in politics.

According a review of federal records, Democrats collected more money from lobbyist bundlers than Republicans did during the first quarter of 2014.

And who is one of the largest recipients of this money, you might ask? Well, according to the website Frontpage Mag, it’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. He has made it a personal goal to attack and slander the Koch brothers.

Reid raised a larger percentage of his campaign cash from these sources than any other member of Congress. The largest donor to Reid’s campaign? The Podesta Group, headed by the brother of a top Obama adviser.

You will never read about facts like these in The Star. Just quotes from our Senate majority leader, who bashes anyone who dares to disagree with him.

Todd Scofield

Overland Park

Overly judgmental

To the couple who left a note on our car in Spin Pizza’s parking lot: Thank you for the nasty message regarding the handicapped tag my parents and I used.

If you would have had the decency to confront us about your problem with it, I would have had the chance to tell you that I had part of my bone sawed into and screws put in my leg.

I recently quit having to use my knee brace. So, because I can’t walk very far or do stairs, the doctor decided it might be a good idea that I have a handicapped tag to use temporarily. Oh, before you pass judgment and leave notes saying, “You must be mentally handicapped because you walked in that building just fine,” don’t be so judgmental and get your facts straight.